I was thinking of trying to make soap from the ash out of my BGE. Make a solution and strain off the particulate. Absolutely no idea of how much ash to use.

You need to be sure to use hardwood ash. Also, much of what you make with the ash method is KOH, so your soap will be softer.

I haven't tried using my soap for shampoo yet. Truth be told, the skin tingling I got from using the soap too young kind of spooked me a bit. Think I'll let that first batch age a while longer before trying it on my hair.

I used to work with thousands of gallons of NaOH at a time at the power plant (ion exchange resin regenerant). I got burned a couple of times in 15 years. I'm a bit shy around caustic now.

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There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way.

Roebic is what I started with. Makes excellent soap. Lowes in my area doesn't carry it anymore.

Easy wasn't it tubercle?

Much, much easier than I would have ever thought.

Started basic just to see what would happen. 3 lbs crisco shortening, distilled water & lye. I used online calculators to get the water & lye weights using 50/50 soybean/cotton seed oil for the crisco (just guessing here).

Tried wisking by hand but after 15 minutes gave up and grabbed the electric stirring stick. Poured into those tupperware food saver bowls as moulds. Now the waiting begins....

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Sweet Caroline where the Sun rises over the deep blue sea and sets somewhere beyond Tennessee

I made two batches yesterday while running some Very Old Dark Kilauea Ale. One batch was made with Kona coffee to the receipe found on the MMS website (half size batch). I made a second batch with coconut fragrance oil:

Decided to try Crisco instead of liquid soybean oil. Crisco is hydrogenated, which I have read will make a harder bar. My soaps made with liquid soybean oil (Kirkland brand) are not as hard as I would like.

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There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way.